New studies suggest that T-Rex's were good tippers and were regularly circumcised at a young age by Triceratops.
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T-Rex bite was world's strongest
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New studies suggest that T-Rex's were good tippers and were regularly circumcised at a young age by Triceratops.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
nightmares.... or AWESOME DREAMS!?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Any 8 year old would have told you this already 
kame-sennin
Member
The first thing this article made me think of was the incredible biting power of the hyena.
Green Mamba
Member
Based on what? Arm length?
Tyrannosaurids had absolutely nothing on the Abelisaurids when it came to ridiculously short arms. At least T. rex has elbows!
bengraven
Member
I remember seeing paintings of him, as well as some of a standing ceratopsian in my youth and going "this is what alien life would be like and it's fucking scary as shit".
What if their biceps were made out of cartilage and decayed over the years, like ancient sharks. What if they actually two three foot long Arnold arms that would punch their prey in the jaw.
just can't catch a break
SatelliteOfLove
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Biggest-Geek-Ever
Member
I'm still hoping they find a new T-Rex skeleton showing they got way bigger than we first thought. Fucking Spinosaurus hurrduhhurr
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Weren't there some theropods that had the head just the same as tyrannosaurus but bigger?
I though I hear that in a documentary.
I though I hear that in a documentary.
I think the producers realized that people love t-rex too much to make it the villain.
You might be thinking of Giganotosaurus, which had a slightly longer skull. It wasn't built as thickly, though; it was relatively slender. T. Rex jaws were much more suited to powerful bites (circular teeth made for withstanding greater bite forces, extremely thick skull base compared to non-tyrannosauroids, etc.)
You can see how much more heavily built the T. Rex skull is, even if it is somewhat shorter in length.
CrunchyFrog
Member
Yeah there have been a few "bigger" Carnivores in the sense of 1-3 feet longer for instance but most of them when it comes down to statistics weigh like half of what the Tyrannosaur did and typically have much different skeleton structures that indicate they could not be near as powerful as the Rex.
Interestingly too the Tyrannosaur had a fairly large brain compared to many of its carnivore cousins.
Interestingly too the Tyrannosaur had a fairly large brain compared to many of its carnivore cousins.
Well small dinosaurs seem to have feathers, so it makes sense that T-Rex does. Small mammals are very furry, so Rhinos and Elephants are covered in thick, glorious hair.
Technosteve
Banned
age of reptiles comicbook
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Its a bit of a stretch, but that makes me wonder if plumage varied with weather, and there were both dinosaurs with and without feathers just like there were mastodons with, without hair, mammoths, and modern elephants.
I wonder if perhaps Tyrannosaurs had feathers when they were younger that were shed as they got older.
Yep. The purportedly larger species are also generally based on incomplete fossils (and there are so few specimens that it's entirely possible that these species were generally the same size and we have just happened to find slightly larger fossilized specimens for some species) and in any case none of the contenders combine the biting force, durability (specimens with broken ribs, snapped vertebrae, fractured limbs, and parts of the skull / brain case ripped out along with evidence that those wounds later healed and the dinosaur continued to live after horrific injuries like that have been found), speed (the same arguments showing that T. Rex was slow can be used to show that other similarly sized theropods were even slower), and intelligence the way T. Rex's did.
Still the King.
Yep. The purportedly larger species are also generally based on incomplete fossils (and there are so few specimens that it's entirely possible that these species were generally the same size and we have just happened to find slightly larger fossilized specimens for some species) and in any case none of the contenders combine the biting force, durability (specimens with broken ribs, snapped vertebrae, fractured limbs, and parts of the skull / brain case ripped out along with evidence that those wounds later healed and the dinosaur continued to live after horrific injuries like that have been found), speed (the same arguments showing that T. Rex was slow can be used to show that other similarly sized theropods were even slower), and intelligence the way T. Rex's did.
Still the King.
Nazgul_Hunter
Member
First time in a while that science hasn't disappointed me about a new dinosaur discovery
That and the scavenger stuff broke my heart, damn you Dinosaur Jim!!!!
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Most dinosaurs would probably be shitting their pants at the notion that Mammals, those tiny little mouse things, could be extremely large and dangerous predators with giant fangs normally only found on dinosaurs! How could such abominations exist?!
This made me feel better! Particularly the second point about speed.
Not much to be perfectly honest, and most other paleontologists would likely tell you the same.
Jack Horner has largely been responsible for popularizing the obligate scavenger hypothesis in recent years, but even he admits that much of it is simply to be contrary and get people to look at the available evidence and not assume T. rex was an arch predator simply because it looks so scary and formidable.
If you actually look at his arguments, most of them don't really hold up. I'll only go through a few in an attempt to keep this brief:
-- Horner believes that T. rex teeth are too long to resist the forces associated with prey capture. However, biomechanical analyses done to estimate the force needed to generate the puncture marks seen in dinosaur bones attributed to T. rex teeth indicate that it had a maximum bite force in the region of 15,000 to almost 40,000 lbs, depending on the study. T. rex teeth are almost circular in cross-section, and specialized to withstand torsional forces.
-- He also maintains that the hind limb anatomy of tyrannosaurs, particularly the ratio of the tibia to femur indicates that it was a slow walker. I find this point amusing because the same evidence used to suggest T. rex was a slowpoke shows that the herbivorous dinosaurs it was going after were even slower! Furthermore, relative to femur length, the tibia and other lower limb elements in T. rex are more elongated than in other giant theropods. No other animal as big as tyrannosaurs would have been any faster.
-- Horner claims that T. rex had "beady little eyes", (his words, not mine), and that it must have lacked the visual acuity of smaller theropods. This is refuted by studies that show that as overall mass increases, eye size does not scale correspondingly to skull length. T. rex eyes are no smaller than would be expected in an animal its size. Horner also conveniently forgets to note the forward-facing eye sockets and binocular vision that's been hypothesized in T. rex. Most other theropods lack these adaptations may not have had the depth perception enjoyed by T. rex.
Most convincingly of all, though, are hadrosaur and ceratopsian fossils preserving trauma from failed predation attempts by T. rex that later healed-- one specimen documents a T. rex biting off one of the brow horns of an adult Triceratops! There's also hadrosaur fossils with unhealed bite punctures to the head and neck, indicating that those individuals weren't quite as fortunate.
I could go on and on, but this post is dangerously long already. Besides, Thomas Holtz had a paper out last year that point-by-point devastates that scavenger hypothesis with hard, quantifiable data. Nobody believes that T. rex didn't scavenge on occasion, like any carnivore, but the weight of the evidence certainly doesn't support Horner's claims that it was restricted to that lifestyle.
Sorry if the reply ended up being more of a thesis, but this is stuff I tend to take rather seriously!
sixteen-bit
Member
Based on what? Arm length?
Tyrannosaurids had absolutely nothing on the Abelisaurids when it came to ridiculously short arms. At least T. rex has elbows!
I can't help but laugh.
Spaceman Spiff
Member
Abelisaurid forearms are truly bizarre, no doubt, as also seen in the recent description of the pectoral girdle and forelimb of Majungasaurus:
The radius and ulna may as well be wrist bones.
Think if they had survived that they would eventually got rid of the arms all together?Abelisaurid forearms are truly bizarre, no doubt, as also seen in the recent description of the pectoral girdle and forelimb of Majungasaurus:
The radius and ulna may as well be wrist bones.
I've seen theories about that...would be cool if they did.
Would be freaky. Big meat eaters dump forearms, while little meat eaters get bigger arms and more agile fingers. Nature is a weird lady.
Spaceman Spiff
Member
Perhaps.
Although the sites for shoulder and upper-arm muscle attachments remain quite large in abelisaurids, and the range of motion at the shoulder, and possibly the wrist, estimated to have been fairly extensive, it's still difficult to imagine what, if anything, they were doing with those arms. They certainly look fairly useless.
But maybe that's what they want us to think...
T-rex has thunder thighs, confirmed?
Green Mamba
Member
Please give me an example of a terrestrial animal the size of tyrannosaurus.
And mammals are not the best comparison either--feathers are not fur. While I agree that T. rex probably wasn't covered in feathers, it's not something you can say is considered "extremely unlikely."
I mean, look at a reconstruction like this:
Are you really willing to say with 99% certainty that T. rex couldn't have possibly looked something like that?
Please give me an example of a terrestrial animal the size of tyrannosaurus.
And mammals are not the best comparison either--feathers are not fur. While I agree that T. rex probably wasn't covered in feathers, it's not something you can say is considered "extremely unlikely."
I mean, look at a reconstruction like this:
Are you really willing to say with 99% certainty that T. rex couldn't have possibly looked something like that?
Looking at that picture makes me come to the conclusion that mammals suck.
Horner has admitted to some degree he trolls for the sake of trolling when it comes to the T-Rex mostly to make people try and look beyond his appearance. He feels just because something is big and scary doesnt mean you should assume it is.
Me I take the approach if its big and scary and has lots of sharp teeth it probably was big and scary
If given a pointy stick I would rather deal with it than the T-Rex.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Please give me an example of a terrestrial animal the size of tyrannosaurus.
And mammals are not the best comparison either--feathers are not fur. While I agree that T. rex probably wasn't covered in feathers, it's not something you can say is considered "extremely unlikely."
I mean, look at a reconstruction like this:
Are you really willing to say with 99% certainty that T. rex couldn't have possibly looked something like that?
That triceratops is huge! Way bigger than the torosaurus to the right.
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DragonGirl
Banned
Oh go stomp your feet in the corner. Birds are wrecking machines. Today's golden eagle is used to hunt wolves. Haast's eagle hunted 10 foot tall elephant birds and humans before its food source was destroyed. Terror birds ruled South America after the dinosaurs went extinct. Knowing theropods were feathered makes them cooler. Would you be happier if we still thought they were tail dragging lizards, slightly more energetic than your average tortoise? And what's this BS about "Scientist's think"? It's not a freaking opinion. We know tyrannosaurs had feathers because we found fossils with them, though not anything specific to T-rex. Personally, I figure hatchlings were down covered and adults lacked many feathers, though males might have had display feathers.
Link to news that T-Rex was found feathered?
DragonGirl
Banned
I did not say T-rex, in fact I specifically excluded it. I said tyrannosaurs. T-rex is just one member of the tyrannosaur family. Dilong is one example of a tyrannosaur found with body feathers. It's an older member of the family and rather small. Tyrannosaurs are mostly smaller to medium sized predators that blew up into some big species in the Late Cretaceous. Simply put, T-rex had feathered ancestors, so it's not a stretch to figure T-rex had feather at least during part of its life cycle and possibly retained at least some feathers into adulthood.
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